Ashes Rain Down – FB2 download : 9781881471172

Ashes Rain Down
A Story Cycle
by William Luvaas

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• Publisher: Spuyten Duyvil
• Language: english
• ISBN: 9781881471172 (1881471179)
• Author: William Luvaas
• Format: paperback, 268 pages
• Awards: Next Generation Indie Book Awards Nominee for Short Story – Fiction (2014)
• Release date: November 1, 2012

About The Book

The ten linked stories in Ashes Rain Down: A story cycle explore what life might be like after decades of global warming, extreme weather events, epidemics, and the collapse of the world economy and social order. Set in an isolated California mountain community, these stories share the same characters and overarching theme that in the face of tragedy, however overwhelming, people find the strength to carry on. The thorny citizens of Sluggards Creek struggle to survive and maintain some semblance of order and meaning in lives stressed by environmental and social apocalypse in a near future that seems like a return to the past. A sense of shared destiny and crises creates a tissue of interconnection as characters hang on by a thread: no food in the stores, no electricity, civil disorder. The deaths of loved ones — in The Forever War, from disease, and suicide — reverberate in the putative death of the earth. Each story presents a new trouble, often a natural disaster; collective problems are reflected in individual troubles as holocaust in the outside world engenders personal holocaust. In the end, the stories are about people dealing with personal troubles, with the larger environmental issues providing a dramatic backdrop against which their lives play out. Characters must rely on their wits and strengths they didn’t know they had to survive.

“The voices in these ten tightly linked stories are reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor’s eccentrics, while the apocalyptic style echoes Cormac McCarthy (if he had a sense of humor). Ultimately, Luvaas infuses these tales with a brilliant absurdity all his own. These ‘eerie ecstasies’ are the musings of a jubilantly dark ironist whose prophetic visions are entirely possible — maybe even inevitable.”

Duff Brenna, Los Angeles Review of Books

“William Luvaas’s brilliant new collection of short stories, Ashes Rain Down: A Story Cycle, is a wildly inventive and epic comedy of prophetic visions, and a masterpiece of fiction for our modern times… .In a year of extreme climate disruptions, Luvaas’s stories should be required reading.”

Jeff Biggers, Huffington Post — BOOK OF THE YEAR (2013)

“The stories in the cycle deal with people who think they live with ghosts, who have retreated to the desert to escape other people, who suffer from terrible diseases or who simply try to survive in a world of violence and wonder… .Luvaas takes extreme, horror-fiction plot elements and uses them as a means of laying bare the American psyche.”

Andre Van Loon, Review 31

“The collection is strangely uplifting despite the operatic landscape of desolation that pervades every aspect of these characters’ lives… .Futuristic and hopeful, Ashes Rain Down, would be a welcome addition to the dystopian lover’s reading list.”

Shoilee Khan, ForeWord Reviews

“Luvaas leans toward the apocalyptic, but he also comes across as a guardian of folk tales, fairytales, and ghost stories. Time is running out for the characters, yet their stories are not depressing; they are enchanting, touching, amusing, even comical.”

Karen Dahood, Bookpleasures.com

“William Luvaas’s wildly creative cautionary tale is so relevant, so urgent, and so timely….His literary spunk and sparkle should assure [Ashes Rain Down] a place on everyone’s bestseller list.”

Peter Clothier, author — posted on The Buddha Diaries blog and Huffington Post

“The people who populate this book are singular, hilarious, melancholy, but always compelling and always right on target. The voices are enjoyable and Mr. Luvaas knows them so well.”

Susan Straight, award-winning author of Between Heaven and Here

“There is nothing quite as comforting as a good-humored dystopian novel on a day of sleet, rain and snow… .What’s wonderful is Luvaas’s people and their web of relationships and their stubborn determination to cope. Some of them cope by moving from the half of the house the tree crushed to the half where it didn’t. Or, if the garden dried up, they cook cactus fruit or a lizard (which makes everyone sick).”

Meredith Sue Willis, author

“‘Ashes Rain Down’ is one of the best contemporary stories I have ever read. The voice is extraordinary… .The plot is complex and evocative. The tone frequently shifts from the truly comic to the hauntingly serious. Few authors can do that. There are echoes of Faulkner here, but the story maintains its literary independence. What a joy to read a story that is such a fresh and inventive use of the form.”

Stephen Minot, author of Three Genres: The Writing of Poetry, Fiction and Drama

“Bill Luvaas’ story Family Life, which won the Ledge 2010 Fiction Award, examines the family dynamic (and all its dysfunction) in remarkably fresh and original fashion with unflinching honesty and brutal detail… .[It is] a story rich with futuristic undertones and an almost post-apocalyptic landscape.

Tim Monaghan, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher, The Ledge Magazine

PRIZES:

Huffington Post Book of the Year

Finalist for Next Generation Indie Book Awards (short story)

Finalist for Eric Hoffer Award’s Montaigne Medal

Three stories in the collection won prizes: “Ashes Rain Down” won Glimmer Train’s Fiction Open Award (winter ’07-08), “Out There” won honorable mention in Carpe Articulum’s International Short Award Series, “Family Life” won first place in The Ledge Magazine’s Fiction Awards Competition, “Heat Wave” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

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